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179 reviews, averaging 56.7% positive

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Date
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1.
Crooked Arrows
John Swansburg
05/18/12 Good (Not Great) "...amateurish, highly predictable... [still,] you'd have to be a poor sport -- or have lost an ancestor at Fort Michilimackinac -- not to have some fun watching the Crooked Arrows inevitably find their mark."
2.
Battleship (2012)
Dana Stevens
05/17/12 Poor "...softens your brain tissue without even providing the endocrine burst of pleasure that would make it all worthwhile."
3. 05/16/12 Good (Not Great) "Isn't the whole point of going to a Sacha Baron Cohen movie to get away from humanist sentiment, to go to a place where darker regions can be accessed?"
4. 05/10/12 Good (Not Great) "...just another overcooked late-Tim Burton style-fest, with enough good gags and strong performances to keep the audience from dwelling on the flaws."
5.
First Position
Dana Stevens
05/04/12 Outstanding "...an unabashedly inspirational portrait of what even very young people can accomplish with discipline and dedication.... irresistible..."
6. 05/03/12 Good "...does manage to feel a cut above the average superhero movie... reasonably entertaining and tonally coherent..."
7.
Bernie (2012)
Dana Stevens
04/27/12 Very Good "...a perversely heartwarming folktale... a story of thwarted love, not between two people, but between a man and a whole town."
8. 04/26/12 Moderate "...like the square older cousin of the 2008 Nicholas Stoller/Jason Segel collaboration 'Forgetting Sarah Marshall'.... has all the formlessness with half the fun."
9.
Marley
Dana Stevens
04/19/12 Good "...an exemplary music documentary in almost every way -- but the area in which it falls short is an important one... Marley's music tends to be heard in frustratingly brief bursts..."
10.
Monsieur Lazhar
Dana Stevens
04/13/12 Excellent "Its surface may be still and quiet, with cool colors, wintry landscapes, and a delicate piano score, but the emotions beneath run tumultuous and deep."
11. 04/12/12 Good (Not Great) "...rarely comes across as more than a cleverly constructed meta-cinematic puzzle. It's often funny and smart, but seldom deeply involving, and practically never scary."
12. 04/06/12 Moderate "...stubbornly peculiar.... always surprising.... the Stillman style has come unmoored from its reason for existence.... flits prettily by without ever finding anything to be about."
13.
Mirror Mirror
Forrest Wickman
03/30/12 Good "...an odd little fantasia of a movie -- part jaunty adventure, part broad romantic comedy, part auteurist spectacle. Half the fun is figuring out what the hell you're watching."
14.
The Hunger Games
Dana Stevens
03/22/12 Very Good "...it will more than satisfy existing fans of the trilogy and likely create many new ones.... Lawrence carries the whole film on her sturdy shoulders."
15.
Casa de mi Padre
Dana Stevens
03/16/12 Moderate "...deeply committed to its own weird conceit, diminishing returns and all.... an interesting but failed experiment..."
16.
21 Jump Street
Dana Stevens
03/15/12 Very Good "...if the first two-thirds is anything to go by, there may be a renaissance at hand for the dumb buddy-cop comedy. I'm just not sure, as the wags in 10th grade used to put it, if that's a threat or a promise."
17.
Friends With Kids
Dana Stevens
03/09/12 Moderate "...pleasant but overfamiliar... isn't an awful movie by any means: It's a polished, palatable yuppie rom-com in the Woody Allen-lite tradition..."
18.
John Carter
Dana Stevens
03/08/12 Good "...a strange, at times misshapen, but somehow lovable thing... a niche movie for lovers of literary science fiction... overlong but sweet-spirited..."
19. 03/02/12 Outstanding "...a miracle -- not only because it's such a terrific movie but because it exists for us to see at all.... the very existence of this movie is a gift. No wonder it came to us in a cake."
20.
Wanderlust (2012)
Dana Stevens
02/24/12 Good "...provides at least one solid laugh per scene, with a few stretches of more extended hilarity (along with more than one riff that dies writhing before our eyes)."

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